Icing, overload are questions in probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speculation over the crash of a single-engine turboprop plane into a cemetery shifted to ice on the wings Monday after it became less likely that overloading was to blame, given that half of the 14 people on board were small children.

While descending Sunday in preparation for landing at the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, Mont., the plane passed through a layer of air at 1,500 feet that was conducive to icing because temperatures were below freezing and the air “had 100 percent relative humidity or was saturated,” according to AccuWeather.com, a forecasting service in State College, Pa.

Safety experts said similar icing conditions existed when a Continental Airlines twin-engine turboprop crashed into a home near Buffalo Niagara International Airport last month, killing 50.

A possible aerodynamic stall in which ice causes the plane to lose lift, and the pilot’s reaction to it, has been the focus of the Buffalo probe.

“It’s Buffalo all over again, or it could be,” said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Icing, given those conditions, is certainly going to be high on the list of things to look at.”

Mark Rosenker, acting NTSB chairman, told reporters in Montana that investigators would look at icing on the wings as a factor.

The plane, designed to carry 10 people, crashed 500 feet short of the Montana airport runway Sunday, nose-diving into a cemetery and killing seven adults and seven children aboard. Relatives said the victims were headed to a ski vacation, and gave the children’s ages as 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, plus two 4-year-olds.

Safety experts said finding the cause of the crash is likely to be significantly complicated by the absence of either a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder, which isn’t required for smaller aircraft that don’t fly commercial passengers like airlines and charter services.

Hours after the crash, federal investigators had focused on overloading as a possible cause.

“It will take us a while to understand,” Rosenker said. “We have to get the weights of all the passengers, we have to get the weight of the fuel, all of the luggage.”